Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Dodgy backlinks pointing to my website - someone trying to ruin my SEO rankings?
-
I just saw in 'Just discovered' section of MOZ that 2 new backlinks have appeared back to my website - www.isacleanse.com.au from spammy websites which look like they might be associated with inappropriate content.
1. http://laweba.net/opinion-y-tecnologia/css-naked-day/comment-page-53/
peepshow says: (peepshow links off to my site)07/17/2016 at 8:55 pm2. http://omfglol.org/archives/9/comment-page-196
voyeur says: (voyeur linking off to my site)
July 17, 2016 at 7:58 pmAny ideas if this is someone trying to send me negative SEO and best way to deal with it?
-
Hello Sandi.
I understand. It seems that my backlinks are fine.
Thanks again.
-
Hey Francisco
My back links were on websites that had content linking to po-rnography so was pretty easy to work out.
To work out if your backlinks are bad quality - you can use the MOZ Open Site Explorer
https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/
This will show the links and domains linking to your website and their SPAM scores - you can click on the SPAM SCORE icon which will show you why it has marked it as that level etc.
-
Hello.
How can I know if my backlinks are bad ones?
Thank you.
-
Also keep in mind that a few bad backlinks are not going to hurt you, especially in the context of a lot of good ones. Google knows that these come up.
From Google's Search Console (aka Webmaster Tools) help:
"In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most normal or typical sites will not need to use this [disavow] tool."
-
Also to add onto what Andy has said:
There are people trying to make money off the removal of those backlinks, so in today's world unless it looks like a legit site, better off to just disavow, most likely they're going to ask for money.
Also, this might not be a competitor, it might be a scraper too, what has puzzled me from day 1 about penguin is, how can you punish a site that gets scraped backlinks? Often they use keywords anchor text and so forth.
So disavow, and keep up the monthly checks...
-
Hi Sandi,
It will be almost impossible to see who has done this, but you have two options.
- Contact the sites in question and request that the links are removed, or
- Just disavow them
Disavowing is the solution most will take because it can be a lot quicker than trying to get hold of people at sites like these.
It is something you will have to stay on top of though - keep a check in Search Console for any new ones that pop up that shouldn't.
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Malicious backlinks
Hello to everyone! We have identified some weird links that are pointing to our site and we are not sure if they are considered malicious backlinks and we should disavow them. Most of them are directories of websites, the most common one is called "Top million domains by alexa" (you can see an example here: www.besafe.in/domain-list-237). Have you ever seen these kind of links before? Are they causing harm to our site? Thank you so much!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | xaviplabor0 -
Forcing Google to Crawl a Backlink URL
I was surprised that I couldn't find much info on this topic, considering that Googlebot must crawl a backlink url in order to process a disavow request (ie Penguin recovery and reconsideration requests). My trouble is that we recently received a great backlink from a buried page on a .gov domain and the page has yet to be crawled after 4 months. What is the best way to nudge Googlebot into crawling the url and discovering our link?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Choice0 -
Sitelinks Search Box impact for SEO
I am wondering how the relatively new sitelinks search box impacts the SEO rankings for a specific site or keyword combination - do you guys have any experience or bechmarks on this? Obviously it should help on getting more real estate on the SERP page (due to adding the search box), but do you also get extra goodwill and improved SERP position from adding it? Also, is the impact different on different type of terms, let's say single brand or category term such as "Bestbuy" (or "coupon") or a combination term "Bestbuy Apple" (or "Dixons coupon")? Thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | tjr0 -
Why have bots (including googlebot) categorized my website as adult?
How do bots decide whether a website is adult? For example, I have a gifting portal, but strangely here, it is categorized as 'Adult'. Also, my google adsense application to run ads on my site got rejected - I have a feeling this is because googlebot categorized my site as adult. And there are good chances that other bots also consider it an adult website, rather than a gifting website. Can anyone please go through the site and tell me why this is happening? Thanks in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | rahulkan0 -
Should You Link Back from Client's Website?
We had a discussion in the office today, about if it can help or hurt you to link back to your site from one that you optimize, host, or manage. A few ideas that were mentioned: HURT:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | David-Kley
1. The website is not directly related to your niche, therefore Google will treat it as a link exchange or spammy link.
2. Links back to you are often not surrounded by related text about your services, and looks out of place to users and Search Engines. HELP:
1. On good (higher PR, reputable domain) domains, a link back can add authority, even if the site is not directly related to your services.
2. Allows high ranking sites to show users who the provider is, potentially creating a new client, and a followed incoming link on anchor text you can choose. So, what do you think? Test results would be appreciated, as we are trying to get real data. Benefits and cons if you have an opinion.2 -
Why website isn't showing on results?
Hello Moz! Just got a quick question - we have a clientcalled and for some reason they just aren't showing up in the search results. It's not a new domain and hasn't been penalised (or has reason for penalty). All the content is fresh and has no bad back links to the site. It is a new website and has been indexed by Google but for even for branded search terms, it just doesn't show up anywhere on page 1 (i think page 4). Any help or advise is great appreciated is it's doing my head in. We are using www.google.com.au. Kindest Regards
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kymodo0 -
Do pingbacks in Wordpress help or harm SEO? Or neither?
Hey everyone, Just wondering, do pingbacks in Wordpress help or harm SEO? Or neither?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jhinchcliffe1 -
How do you deal with spammy backlinks?
One of the web designers I work with asked me to do a preliminary site assessment on a small business website. The owner of the business had a falling out with his previous web designer and moved over to the one I work with earlier this year. The site has been redesigned but when analyzing the back links I discovered that the previous designer had created directories to create backlinks to the page. The PR 0 links from the site number about 150 and are from unrelated topic pages. So, it made me wonder, how much damage can spammy backlinks do? What is the best practice to deal with spammy backlinks if you find them?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TheARKlady0